Nintendo profit falls on sluggish Wii U sales

TOKYO (AP) — Nintendo Co. says its profit for the first nine months of the fiscal year fell 30 percent because of languishing sales of its Wii U home consoles and game software.

The Japanese maker of Super Mario video games reported Wednesday a 10.2 billion yen ($99 million) profit from April to December, down from 14.55 billion yen a year earlier. It did not break down quarterly numbers.

The Kyoto-based company this month forecast a loss of 25 billion yen ($242 million) for the fiscal year through March 2014. It had earlier forecast a profit of 55 billion yen ($532 million).

It also cut its annual forecast of Wii U sales from 9 million units to just 2.8 million, fewer than a third of its earlier estimate.